Black People : AMERICA IS NOT A GREAT COUNTRY: STOP SAYING IT

Frederick Douglass (A former slave himself, he
became a leader in the 19th Century Abolitionist Movement)
This speech is here, courtesy of The Freeman Institute™.
***************************************************

Fellow citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?

Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold that a nation's sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation's jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that the dumb might eloquently speak and the "lame man leap as an hart."


But such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me by asking me to speak today? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn that it is dangerous to copy the example of nation whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrevocable ruin! I can today take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people.

"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea! We wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there, they that carried us away captive, required of us a song; and they who wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth."

Fellow citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! Whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, today, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorry this day, "may my right hand cleave to the roof of my mouth"! To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, then, fellow citizens, is American slavery. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view. Standing there identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine. I do not hesitate to declare with all my soul that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the Constitution and the Bible which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery-the great sin and shame of America! "I will not equivocate, I will not excuse"; I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, shall not confess to be right and just....

For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Is it not as astonishing that, while we are plowing, planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, and secretaries, having among us lawyers doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators, and teachers; and that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hillside, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives, and children, and above all, confessing and worshiping the Christian's God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men!...
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What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? No! I will not. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply....

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States at this very hour.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms- of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.

THE KENYATTA EXTENSION OF HIS SPEECH THAT HE WOULD HAVE MADE WERE HE HERE.

Being an extension of our ancestors, dragged to the shores of this Great Nation to be, I must continue to extend the misgivings of our people so as to clarify the true intent of the glorious foundation and track record that we so mistakenly see as vast improvement. I therefore must continue in the great voice of Mr. Douglass. Oh Great Nation ! Framers of the Constitution, a document that you have held up to the world and spouted with pride of its glorious intent to be extended to all men of this land....why were we included only in jest ? Why would you create a penal system so soon after the freedom of our people and then fill it with 100% black women to stop our reproduction?

Our people speak of great gains, and yet we now know that there were more senators, mayors, congressman and govenors who were black in the "first reformation than anyone has ever seen in this so called new millennium era". I plead with you from the hallowed words of your own document to understand how and why you would step in to dent, to destroy, to disrupt any advancement of our people to do, to build, to have for themselves what you desire for your own kind? Is this the freedom and equality you speak of? You spoke of it in the bombing of Black Wallstreet, of the destruction of our cities in Florida, Philadelphia and elsewhere. You speak of humanity and freedom in the movements against Mr. Garvey....the death of Malcolm X, Dr. King, Patrice Lamumba and many more. I see and understand your hallowed attempts of humanity in the tuskeegee experiments and in the creation of aids through which you infected our populations because of your own fear. Your fear and love for justice and human equality explains why you would take this virus out of the lab onto the Motherland to infect 24 million more of my people in the name of providing aid to them. Yes, I Love America...and now I am beginning to see why.

I know now that for my own you create birth control while for your own you create the fertility pill. I know now that there are programs in place directed at the very children of our future that you have chemicalized so that they would have no future. I understand in your documents that I have no real rights other than what you have chosen to give to me...and he who giveth, taketh away at will...revealing to me the equality and true meaning of the illusion you have us call being a citizen.
I know know that the rate of the incarceration of our people in the penal system is the exact ratio that they were being incarcerated at in the time of Mr. Garvey...revealing that the past and present are the same. Our people have cried and died to be near and dear to you, to show you that we hold and held no real animosity for your past deeds. And with our blood and hope for the future we integrated with you.

We have now learned the painful mistake that it was, for in doing so, we have lost respect and honer for ourselves, our women, our children and our legacy. We have become much too much like you in mentality, character, materialism and heritage. In essence, we have become a carbon copy of you...all to the aid our own destruction. We have looked within the constitution to find out why every war fought was against other nations of color with our own on the front lines? Could we not see this when your people raised up against Jamaica, Grenanda, Ethiopia, South Africa, Libya, Angola, Ghana, Nigeria, Viet Nam and Japan, just to name a few? I was there when the president of South Africa dared America to say anything about apartied...and let it be known in his words; "HOW CAN THE KETTLE CALL THE POT BLACK?"

I know the love your people of this country extend to ours as our communities are flooded with crack and heroin, with crime and a mentality of destruction among our young. I was there when the American government created crack on the West Coast to fund their illegal operations in Central America...a product of death that they purposely placed in all our communities across this great and noble nation. I understand and recognize the effects of your purposely constructed miseducation and images upon the youth of our people. The all out theft and deception that you have engaged in to your benefit and those like you. So great has and is this conditioning upon us, that we can cry a river of Jordanian tears over 6 million white people in Germany or the bombings in Israel and yet treat the death and destruction of more than a 100 million of our own as trivial.

You have done and are doing your job very well America, for I have only touched the tip of the iceburg concerning your deeds, your history and your intent concerning my own people. We no longer know who we are as a people, smothered by your legacy to deny us our heritage thru miseducation and an individualism that extends from your history that we now incorporate as our own. I know now that America lives very well from the rape and destruction of other peoples and lands so that you may prosper. You have removed the chains from our hands and ankles to our minds and souls. Yes, I too love America, and now I know why. You have done your job so well that we are now at a point 'WHERE YOU NO LONGER HAVE TO DEFEND YOURSELF AGAINST YOUR OWN DIRT, DESTRUCTION AND DEATH OF OUR PEOPLE...WE WILL DO IT FOR YOU. Yes Mr. Douglass, you are right....AMERICA HAS NO RIVAL IN THESE AREAS !

I wanted to apologize for thinking that America changed, but I clearly see that he was correct...America got worse !
God Bless All of you !![/
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To me america is a joke, it says freedom, justice and equality on the can but when you open it the contents is the opposite especially if your a black man, everyone else can have justice in america whether white,chinese etc even a black women gets oppotunity under the system but the black man is rejected by the system, they deny us good jobs most of the time and when we try to be inventive and make cultures to feed us they scheme ways of robbing us of our cultures and leaving us at the bottom, the oppressor cant trouble black women because their female so there are more black women with an education then black men, these women cannot relate to the majority of black men, we loose the respect of our women because not enough black men posses the money to take care of our women, the white man has the money so he takes the finest black women and leaves us with the rest and the rest dont except you unless you act like a thug nd wheres a relationship with a thug going to leed to, nothing positive. America is a great place to be, the west is a great place to be as long as your not a BLACK MAN, if your a black man you can still achieve in the west but along the way the oppressor will try and put you through as much hell as possible. It makes me wonder if there will ever be justice for black men cause everything gets blamed on us yet we are the biggest victims of this system we call america and the west
 
America is what we make it.

But to look deep in the matter African descent people who have ties or wish to seek their ancestors will have to ask this eventually.

Ancestors, did you arrive to America to make it a living hell?

You will have to examine THEIR works to FIND OUT.

I say no.

America the LAND is asking for JUSTICE (RESTORATION BALANCE). TODAY America the PEOPLE are asking for the WORLD to sustain PROSPERITY whichg includes BLACK and AFRICAN people WANTING the SAME.

Two conflicting messages.

I have a feeling which one will WIN in the LONG-TERM. I think our ancestors had a LONG-TERM plan for us in this LAND. Not of the PEOPLE.

But if you like RUTHLESS WHITE that much than he wont be here too long, PACK your BAGS like you have BEEN DOING.

You will not COME BACK to the LAND of the LIVING.

Yeah you notice LAND of WHAT? The LIVING.

Native Americans lived in this land an estimated 10,000 years while we are trying to hit 500 years. That already tells me WHO will WIN.


Oh well.

I am not WORRIED.
 
spicybrown said:
Greetings Hope:spinstar:

Not all Brothers have lost the respect of ALL Sisters. I agree with your assessment that Black men are THE most oppressed. But of course in a capitalist society, SOME ONE will ALWAYS be at the very bottom unfortunately, all too often, it is my beautiful beloved Black Brethren:( SO whenever you feel down and out, log onto Destee.com; therein you will find a buddy named Spicy, with an outstretched hand:sand:

Hello, I'm spicybrown. Nice to meet you:)

well i wont front spicy im not sure if i would take your hand, ive read some of your posts on here and you sound ANTI-BLACK MAN, you seem to take happiness in the black mans downfalls, you dont seem too compassionate to the black mans plight, so i dont know how to respond to you, i only respect sistahs that are suppotive. I think that maybe deep down you have a hatred of black men or you strike me as one of those sistahs who hero worships the white man which is sad in itself if true. You said in the capilalist society someone has to be at the bottom and is unfortunately black men, well i say there will come a day when the tail will be the head and all who mocked the tail will have to answer. When you consider the future there is no place for anymore disrespect towards black people in particular black men, we have endure enough disrespect and the time is arriving when the black man will finally say enough is enough. But until that time we wont be leaning on anyone for support if that person is tryin to look down on us.
 

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